With a continuously growing population, it is becoming increasingly difficult to meet the world's energy needs as well as to control carbon emissions to kerb greenhouse gas emissions that are considered responsible for global warming phenomena. These concerns have triggered a drive towards a more efficient use of electricity in an attempt to reduce energy consumption.
One such area of concern is lighting applications, either in domestic or commercial settings. There is a clear trend towards the replacement of traditional incandescent light bulbs, which are notoriously energy inefficient, with more energy efficient replacements. Indeed, in many jurisdictions the production and retailing of incandescent light bulbs has been outlawed, thus forcing consumers to buy energy-efficient alternatives, e.g. when replacing incandescent light bulbs.
A particular promising alternative is provided by solid state lighting (SSL) devices, which can produce a unit luminous output at a fraction of the energy cost of incandescent light bulbs. An example of such a SSL element is a light emitting diode.
A drawback of SSL element-based lighting devices is that the compatibility with incandescent light-based device fittings, e.g. luminaries, is not perfect, which hampers the market penetration of the SSL element-based lighting devices. SSL element-based lighting devices typically require one or more driver circuits for driving the SSL elements, which when integrated into the lighting device can increase the size of the lighting device to such an extent that the lighting device cannot be retrofitted into existing luminaries. This problem may be solved by using external driver circuits, but this can be cumbersome if no recess is available to fit the external driver circuit, and may prohibit domestic end users from installing the SSL element-based lighting devices in case they are not competent or prohibited by law from doing so for health and safety reasons.